Athanasios Sachlas

Childhood and adolescent psoriasis in Greece: a retrospective analysis of 842 patients.

Childhood and adolescent psoriasis is not an uncommon disease, but epidemiological information from a large series of studies is still lacking.

Assessment of Fatigue in End Stage Renal Disease Patients Undergoing Hemodialysis: Prevalence and Associated Factors.

Background: Fatigue is a common symptom referred by many patients undergoing hemodialysis. Fatigue is associated with poor health-related quality of life (HRQoL) and is an important predictor for survival of hemodialysis patients. Aim: To assess the levels of fatigue and demographic factors affecting it among patients with End Stage Renal Disease undergoing hemodialysis. Methods: This quantitative study was carried out in two Dialysis Units of Hospitals in Athens Region. Between January 2015 and June 2015, 129 hemodialysis patients completed the Greek Version of the Fatigue Assessment Scale (FAS). Demographic data of patients was recorded. For the statistical analysis IBM SPSS Statistics version 20 was used. Results: The mean FAS score was 24.99. 49 patients (38.0%) were non fatigued, 61 patients (47.3%) were fatigued, and 19 patients (13.7%) were extremely fatigued. Higher levels of fatigue were reported among hemodialysis patients residing in urban areas, in those with low educational level and unemployed. Conclusion: The findings of this study can be used in the assessment of fatigue and early identification of high-risk patients (especially of the unemployed, those who occupy with domestic works, those with low educational level and of urban citizens). Use of this knowledge by hemodialysis nurses may lead to a better understanding of the factors of fatigue in ESRD, which in turn may lead to a more effective treatment.

Assessing Factors That Affect Coping Strategies Among Nursing Personnel

Introduction: The nursing profession is characterized as one of the most stressful professions. A significant number of international surveys prove that nurses experience anxiety that often is accompanied by intense symptoms that negatively affect their work performance and their psychological mood. Aim: To evaluate the ways of coping in stress adopted by the nursing staff and their relationship with sociodemographic and job characteristics. Methodology: A cross-sectional, quantitative study was conducted in seven hospitals of Peloponnese Region, Greece. The study took place between April 2013-June 2013 and 395 nurses completed the Ways of Coping questionnaire. Socio-demographic, educational and job characteristics of nurses were, also, recorded. Results: Strategies focused on the problem were adopted to a greater extent more by postgraduate nurses, head nurses, and nurses with greater working experience. Intensive Care Unit nurses mainly adopted the strategy of denial while strategies focused on emotions were mostly adopted by females. Age and marital status did not affect significantly the choice of coping strategies. Conclusions: According to our findings several demographic factors that affect coping in stressful situations can be investigated and such an investigation could offer useful research findings for consideration.

On a Minimization Problem Involving Divergences and Its Applications

In this chapter, motivated by the seminal paper of Brockett, “Information theoretic approach to actuarial science: A unification and extension of relevant theory and applications,”Transactions of the Society of Actuaries, Vol. 43, 73–135 (1991), we review minimization of the Kullback – Leibler divergence D KL (u,v) between observed (raw) death probabilities or mortality rates, u, and the same entities, v, to be graduated (or smoothed) subject to a set of reasonable constraints such as monotonicity, bounded smoothness, etc. Noting that the quantities u and v, involved in the above minimization problem based on the Kullback – Leibler divergence, are nonprobability vectors, we study the properties of divergence and statistical information theory for D KL (p,q), where pand q are nonprobability vectors. We do the same for the Cressie and Read power divergence between nonprobability vectors, solve the problem of graduation of mortality rates via Lagrangian duality theory, discuss the ramifications of constraints, tests of goodness-of-fit, and compare with other graduation methods, predominantly the Whittaker and Henderson method. At the end we provide numerical illustrations and comparisons.

Phototherapy as a first-line treatment for early-stage mycosis fungoides: The results of a large retrospective analysis

Phototherapy is one of the main treatments for mycosis fungoides (MF). In this study, we analyzed the efficacy and safety of phototherapy as a first‐line treatment in patients with early‐stage disease.

The Effect of Nutrition and Sleep Habits on Predisposition for Metabolic Syndrome in Greek Children

Purpose: To investigate the effect of lifestyle habits in childhood Metabolic Syndrome (MTS). Design and Methods: Descriptive correlation study with 480 participants (5–12years old) using a specially designed questionnaire was conducted. Anthropometric and biochemical analyses were performed. Results: Fifteen percent of children exhibited predisposition for MTS. Regarding sleep habits, logistic regression analysis (LRA) showed that hour of sleep ‐before 22:00‐ was associated with decreased waist circumference (WC%) (p=.026). Midday siesta was negatively correlated with systolic (SBP) (p=.001) and diastolic blood pressure (DBP) (p=.046). In children without MTS, lack of sleep and night time sleep was positively correlated with DBP (p=.044) and fasting blood glucose (FBG) (p=.005). Regarding nutrition habits, fast food consumption was positively correlated with SBP (p=.006) and meat consumption was positively correlated with both Body Mass Index% (BMI%) (p=.038) and WC% (p=.023). LRA showed that fruit (p=.001) and legume (p=.040) consumption was associated with decreased FBG; fish consumption with decreased Low Density Lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol (p=.031), vegetable (p=.054) and cereal consumption (p=.012) with decreased DBP. In children with MTS, fruits were associated with increased FBG (p=.034). In children without MTS, meat consumption was associated with increased LDL (p=.024), cereal with increased WC% (p=.002) and olive products with increased High Density Lipoprotein (HDL) cholesterol and BMI% (p=.037). Conclusions: The adoption of both balanced diet and sleep habits seemed to be crucial for the prevention of MTS. Practice Implications: Clinical health nurses could develop and implement preventive intervention programs in order to avoid metabolic complications in adulthood. HIGHLIGHTSThe prevalence of predisposition for metabolic syndrome is significantly high for children of the studied population.The adoption of balanced diet, increased consumption of fruits and vegetables, could be beneficial for childrens metabolism.Balanced sleep habits are equally important for childrens metabolism.Beneficial lifestyle habits could be more effective for children without predisposition for metabolic syndrome.